Spaces of Nature/Natures of Space Symposium

A graphic identity and website ↗ designed for the 'Spaces of Nature/Natures of Space' graduate student symposium ↗. I created the event's visual identity and designed the official website while co-organizing the symposium with Taisuke Wakabayashi at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During the symposium, held on February 14, 2025, I presented an early draft of my research paper, 'The Interpretive Nature of Space: Generative Ambiguity in Heritage Visualization'.

Abstract

In architectural representation, the tension between objectivity and ambiguity opens space for interpretive engagement. Yet contemporary digital visualization practices increasingly prioritize photorealism—a pursuit that, as Lefebvre cautions, risks reducing lived space to a superficial spectacle. Drawing on research conducted at Cyprus's Virtual Environments Laboratory, this paper contends that the nature of space emerges not through visual mimesis but through the generative potential of representational ambiguity. Such an approach aligns virtual reconstructions with the deeper intellectual and cultural aims of the Digital Humanities.
The Nicosia International Airport (1968), abandoned in Cyprus's UN buffer zone since 1974, exemplifies the interpretive challenges of modern architectural heritage. Here, meaning is negotiated between design intent, built form, and lived experience. More than a modernist relic of Cyprus's post-colonial aspirations, the site's abrupt abandonment transformed it into a time capsule of what de Certeau terms 'spatial practices': public terraces and amenities overlooking the tarmac once fostered forms of social life unimaginable in today's airports. With these practices now confined to living memory, methodologies are needed that integrate experiential knowledge with conventional documentation.
To address this gap, we developed an approach to heritage visualization through a year-long museum installation featuring a virtual reconstruction of the airport set in 1969. By embedding carefully designed 'interpretation gaps'—strategic ambiguities in the visualization—we created a system that invites visitors to actively bridge these gaps through their contributions: memories, media, and historical knowledge. In this way, the virtual environment becomes both a research instrument and a medium for collective storytelling, supporting rather than supplanting the social practices that sustain collective memory.